hazy now, although it is only a year ago that
I left Fowley. What would Mrs. Borum
have thought of the Misses Fawkes, and the
Gummups? Good gracious, I tremble—or
ought to tremble—at the notion of Mrs.
Borum's being required to think about them
at all. I suppose they could not, on any
terms, be considered as belonging to Society;
yet, what a bright little change it was for
me, after a hard day's work, to go and take
a cup of tea with the Misses Fawkes. Miss
Jemima was the elder. She possessed a
bass voice, a beard, and a very docile nature.
Miss Martha, the younger, was small, fair,
delicate, and sometimes a little exacting;
but Miss Jemima was always willing she
should have her way in everything. How
pleasant to pass through the village at dusk,
in a perfect shower of "Good-night, Miss,"
to notice how cheery those greetings were,
and how they gradually grew rarer and more
solemn the farther I got into the dark lane.
Then, at a sudden turning, to see the rich
red firelight gleaming from the parlour-
window at my dear Miss Fawkes's, and to
know it was because I was expected; for
they had a pretty, hospitable custom of never
shutting their shutters until their guests
arrived, but letting the noble light laugh out,
and beckon you on as soon as you could see
the house.

When Jane had shown me in, what a
stately reception followed while she hastened
to close the shutters, and make the little
room more cheerful than before, if possible.
What a funny little room it was! How
difficult to steer in! But I knew it by heart. I
knew which of the chairs you might not sit
down in, because they had only two legs—
how if you gave the slightest touch to the
flapped-table against the wall, its principal
ornament, the green tea-tray covered with
parrots, slipped, and swept off the family
Bible, with all the strange crystals and shells,
in one ruinous crash. I knew the square
piano, too, which made my heart leap the
first time I saw it—for I had not touched one
since I was twelve years old—and which
was guiltless of any musical capacity. It
was there they kept their old letters, and
their mother's wedding pin-cushion, with the
appropriate sentiment in pins which had
never been disturbed. We were very slow
at tea, taking surreptitious bites and sips, for
it was etiquette to consume the meal as
mysteriously as possible. After tea, we generally
chatted over our work; but sometimes, to my
great horror, cards were suggested—and when
suggested I knew they were inevitable, for
all details had been arranged the day before.
My objection to cards is not the usual
aversion to gambling, for we never played
for money, but I noted at Fowley that no
nature was proof against their degrading
influence. I saw otherwise noble and amiable
creatures exhibit meannesses and ill-temper
in the excitement of the game, which it was
a pain to witness. It was nothing short of
frightful to see those mildest of beings, and
most loving of sisters—the Misses Fawkes—
grow malignant towards each other, and
really look dreadful, when a large vein in
their foreheads—which was exactly the same
in each—used to swell up, and threaten to
burst the narrow fillet of black velvet with
which they were wont to bind their brows.
Doubtless, I am only preserved from the
same moral downfall by my perfect
inability to take any interest in the game, or
to ward off a certain intolerable sleepiness
which sets in after the first five minutes.
When these evil passions had sufficiently
subsided for the usual affectionate leave-taking,
their natural goodness would gush
forth in profuse offers of shawls and
wrappers, always ending in the admonition:
"Now do take care of yourself, my dear.
Consider her lone state, Jemima!"

Vulgar as Mrs. Borum would pronounce
all this to be, the Gummups were still plainer
folk.

I don't know why Mrs. Gumrnup's garden
was a drying-ground planted with line-posts.
She did not take in washing. Only mangling.
(Forgive her, Mrs. Borum!) Perhaps it was
a sign of former prosperous occupation. She
had always lived in her present poor little
house, which looked as if it had grown old
with her, and would crumble down on the day
its lively old mistress died. She had had
fourteen children, "an' all alive and kickin',"
she would say, although as far as my
experience went, they pursued that lively
occupation anywhere but in her neighbourhood,
for they were never seen at Fowley.
Poor old couple! To think of the swarm
of life Mr. aud Mrs. Gummup must have
lived in before their children left them, and
now they were so very lonely, and so very
old.

They had a portrait of one daughter—an
uncomfortable work of art, from its peculiar
perspective treatment, which gave an impression
that everything was slipping out. This
daughter had married well, was gorgeously
dressed, and was represented as what I can
not otherwise describe than sitting tip-toe, so
surprisingly perpendicular was the position of
her feet; the floor, on its way up to support
the back legs of her chair, obligingly touched
her elevated heels, and gave them that sliding-out
appearance, characteristic of the whole.
She sat in dignified idleness, but there was a
bird's-eye view of a table like a target, on
which were arrayed extensive preparations for
industry, in the shape of a red morocco work-box,
scissors, thimble, &c.—all slipping off.
The only benefit which Mrs. Gummup had
received from this affluent lady, was this
picture, which my old friend—who is given to
speaking mystically—told me was the "very
moral of her." There was another daughter,
about whom there was a story which I was
never sufficiently clear-headed to understand.